Did Radiation Affect Evolution?

[phands]

I am thinking you are full of shit!

Evolution does not plan. It does not plot. It does not have goals.

If you think there is a mind in evolutionary change you are deluded.

This was the genius of Darwin's work. He discovered a way in which productive change occurs with no foresight planning or goals.

Without a god driving the whole thing towards humanity.

Looks like the full of shit thing is projection.

While evolution was not initially directed by minds, I showed that it has been, by human minds, for a very long time. But you ignored that inconvenient fact.

 

[untermensche]

I am thinking you are full of shit!

Evolution does not plan. It does not plot. It does not have goals.

If you think there is a mind in evolutionary change you are deluded.

This was the genius of Darwin's work. He discovered a way in which productive change occurs with no foresight planning or goals.

Without a god driving the whole thing towards humanity.

Looks like the full of shit thing is projection.

While evolution was not initially directed by minds, I showed that it has been, by human minds, for a very long time. But you ignored that inconvenient fact.

You are merely saying that change with planning and foresight and goals and desires is the same thing as change without any of that.

It can be said. Gibberish can be uttered.

But they are completely different modes of change.

On one hand you have evolutionary change without a mind.

On the other the changes humans make with their minds.

Separate and distinct.

Saying they are the same thing is gibberish.

It is willed ignorance to clear distinctions.

Somebody show me where evolutionary change is defined as change made by a mind.

That flies in the face of Darwin's entire work.

He removed any gods from the picture.

There is no logic that connects: The human mind arrived via evolution therefore the changes it makes are also evolution. Utter nonsense!!

The river arrived via erosion therefore the fish in it are also erosion.

It makes just as much sense.

 

[bilby]

I am thinking you are full of shit!

Evolution does not plan. It does not plot. It does not have goals.

If you think there is a mind in evolutionary change you are deluded.

This was the genius of Darwin's work. He discovered a way in which productive change occurs with no foresight planning or goals.

Without a god driving the whole thing towards humanity.

Looks like the full of shit thing is projection.

While evolution was not initially directed by minds, I showed that it has been, by human minds, for a very long time. But you ignored that inconvenient fact.

You are merely saying that change with planning and foresight and goals and desires is the same thing as change without any of that.

It can be said. Gibberish can be uttered.

But they are completely different modes of change.

On one hand you have evolutionary change without a mind.

On the other the changes humans make with their minds.

Separate and distinct.

Saying they are the same thing is gibberish.

It is willed ignorance to clear distinctions.

Somebody show me where evolutionary change is defined as change made by a mind.

That flies in the face of Darwin's entire work.

He removed any gods from the picture.

There is no logic that connects: The human mind arrived via evolution therefore the changes it makes are also evolution. Utter nonsense!!

The river arrived via erosion therefore the fish in it are also erosion.

It makes just as much sense.

Don't you ever get tired of being so angrily and stridently wrong about stuff?

Humans are a significant part of the environment for a large number of species, and have been the major driver of evolution in domesticated species for thousands of years, in many cases changing them beyond all recognition.

But you are too busy angrily misinterpreting the posts of an actual expert in the field to even contemplate the possibility that you might be making a collosal fool of yourself.

You are inviting your audience to scorn the posts of fools, without realising that they are - but that it's you that is the target of that scorn.

 

[Jokodo]

There is evolution. Change that takes place without any mind or planning involved. There are no goals.

There is also human caused change. Change that takes place due to planning and foresight and greed and pride and desire.

There's precious little planning and foresight to most human caused change.

When my ancestors started to clear much of the forests in Central Europe for farmland and pasture, creating an environment for open-dwelling animals that hadn't existed since the last glaciation, they didn't do it because they felt forest-dwellers were at an unfair advantage. They did it in order to feed and breed.

When the cyanobacteria started to emit to vast amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, they also did it to feed and breed and not out of a sense of hostility towards anaerobic organisms. The effects on the environment were at least as game-changing.

Calling one of those changes 'directed' and the other 'random' and 'undirected' merely because the agents in one case had a mind (which they didn't put to use to bring about the change) is magical thinking.


And that's before we go into whether changes that have been brought about voluntarily by thinking agent are categorically something different in a biologically meaningful sense.

 

[fromderinside]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.7303.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1203310/

Gamma radiation is mutagenic. Did it spark the Cambrian explosion in diversity?

No. The main thing was a genetic release brought about by a lot of previously filled niches being left vacant permitting once less fit forms to secure a profitable place in the phenosphere. Most variants were already extant. All radiation did was have more targets for mutating genes.

 

[untermensche]

Don't you ever get tired of being so angrily and stridently wrong about stuff?

Your ignorance on this is not surprising.

You are wrong about so many things.

You believe in real completed infinities. No better than a Christian believing in spirits.

Humans are a significant part of the environment for a large number of species, and have been the major driver of evolution in domesticated species for thousands of years, in many cases changing them beyond all recognition.

You are just calling change caused by planning and foresight and desire with goals the same thing as evolution.

As I said it is possible to utter ignorant things.

But Evolution is change WITHOUT planning or foresight or desires or goals.

To not know this and talk about evolution is to look like a fool.

 

[untermensche]

There is evolution. Change that takes place without any mind or planning involved. There are no goals.

There is also human caused change. Change that takes place due to planning and foresight and greed and pride and desire.

There's precious little planning and foresight to most human caused change.

It is all foresight and planning.

I need a better spear.

I have a goal.

I design specifically to fulfill that goal.

The design changes based on new ideas.

But it is all change with a goal in mind.

I need better software.

I design specifically to fulfill that goal.

It is ALL goal oriented change.

The ultimate goal is to make human life easier and more interesting.

When my ancestors started to clear much of the forests in Central Europe for farmland and pasture, creating an environment for open-dwelling animals that hadn't existed since the last glaciation, they didn't do it because they felt forest-dwellers were at an unfair advantage. They did it in order to feed and breed.

They made changes with goals IN MIND.

Evolution is change with no goals or mind to have them in.

When the cyanobacteria started to emit to vast amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, they also did it to feed and breed and not out of a sense of hostility towards anaerobic organisms. The effects on the environment were at least as game-changing.

That is not shown to be change using a mind with goals IN MIND.

Calling one of those changes 'directed' and the other 'random' and 'undirected' merely because the agents in one case had a mind (which they didn't put to use to bring about the change) is magical thinking.

The changes made by the humans was most definitely directed.

It was all change with goals in mind.

Once you have a mind that can have goals of it's own you are not talking about evolutionary change any more.

Evolution is change without planning or purpose or desire or need or plan.

It does not have or need a mind directing it.

 

[Jokodo]

It is all foresight and planning.

I need a better spear.

I have a goal.

I design specifically to fulfill that goal.

The design changes based on new ideas.

But it is all change with a goal in mind.

I need better software.

I design specifically to fulfill that goal.

It is ALL goal oriented change.

The ultimate goal is to make human life easier and more interesting.

When my ancestors started to clear much of the forests in Central Europe for farmland and pasture, creating an environment for open-dwelling animals that hadn't existed since the last glaciation, they didn't do it because they felt forest-dwellers were at an unfair advantage. They did it in order to feed and breed.

They made changes with goals IN MIND.

They may have had all kinds of goals, but making the foothills of the Alps more hospitable for hares and less for forest grouse wasn't among them.

Evolution is change with no goals or mind to have them in.

You keep saying so, but you fail to provide a meaningful reason why this distinction should even be meaningful -- and even so, most human-caused change falls in that camp anyway.

When the cyanobacteria started to emit to vast amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, they also did it to feed and breed and not out of a sense of hostility towards anaerobic organisms. The effects on the environment were at least as game-changing.

That is not shown to be change using a mind with goals IN MIND.

Neither is the majority of the change humans have caused and are causing.

Calling one of those changes 'directed' and the other 'random' and 'undirected' merely because the agents in one case had a mind (which they didn't put to use to bring about the change) is magical thinking.

The changes made by the humans was most definitely directed.

It was all change with goals in mind.

Once you have a mind that can have goals of it's own you are not talking about evolutionary change any more.

Evolution is change without planning or purpose or desire or need or plan.

It does not have or need a mind directing it.

That's like saying a parachuter is not subject to gravity.

 

[untermensche]

That's like saying a parachuter is not subject to gravity.

Evolution is not a fundamental force.

It is the process by which life changes over time.

Genetics is the process that allows periods of stability and records changes.

Planned changes made with a mind are not evolution.

They are not gravity either.

 

[Peez]

Perhaps it is a language issue, certainly untermensche's posts look as if they are responses to something different from what was actually posted. In any event there does not seem to be much point in commenting further.

Peez

 

[Jokodo]

That's like saying a parachuter is not subject to gravity.

Evolution is not a fundamental force.

It is the process by which life changes over time.

Genetics is the process that allows periods of stability and records changes.

Planned changes made with a mind are not evolution.

They are not gravity either.

Are planned descents with a destination in mind subject to gravity?

 

[untermensche]

That's like saying a parachuter is not subject to gravity.

Evolution is not a fundamental force.

It is the process by which life changes over time.

Genetics is the process that allows periods of stability and records changes.

Planned changes made with a mind are not evolution.

They are not gravity either.

Are planned descents with a destination in mind subject to gravity?

Is the mind subject to gravity?

Are decisions made due to gravitational forces?

Does 2 + 2 = 4 because of gravity?

 

[untermensche]

Perhaps it is a language issue, certainly untermensche's posts look as if they are responses to something different from what was actually posted. In any event there does not seem to be much point in commenting further.

Peez

My posts "look" like words on a screen.

Their meaning is clear.

There is Evolutionary change which is change without foresight, without planning, without desires, without goals.

And a completely different kind of change using a mind where all those things are involved.

 

[Jokodo]

Are planned descents with a destination in mind subject to gravity?

Is the mind subject to gravity?

Are decisions made due to gravitational forces?

Does 2 + 2 = 4 because of gravity?

No, but a parachuter descends because of gravity, and species change because of non-random survival and reproduction rates correlated with at least partially hertitable traits.

Whether a mind is involved that wants to land in a particular spot, or whether a mind is involved that wants the evolutionary change to go in a certain direction, doesn't change anything about the basic mechanisms involved.

 

[untermensche]

Are planned descents with a destination in mind subject to gravity?

Is the mind subject to gravity?

Are decisions made due to gravitational forces?

Does 2 + 2 = 4 because of gravity?

No, but a parachuter descends because of gravity, and species change because of non-random survival and reproduction rates correlated with at least partially hertitable traits.

If you don't have random mutations there is no change. Mutations have nothing to do with gravity.

And survival rates are always random. Under all circumstances.

Whether a mind is involved that wants to land in a particular spot, or whether a mind is involved that wants the evolutionary change to go in a certain direction, doesn't change anything about the basic mechanisms involved.

The mechanism you described has no mind.

Adding a planning mind that can effect things most definitely would change outcomes.

This is the whole religious problem with Evolution.

There is no god anywhere or need of one.

And there is no plan or planner driving change towards humans.

 

[Jokodo]

No, but a parachuter descends because of gravity, and species change because of non-random survival and reproduction rates correlated with at least partially hertitable traits.

If you don't have random mutations there is no change. Mutations have nothing to do with gravity.

And survival rates are always random. Under all circumstances.

Bullshit (though there's an argument I should have said "non-uniform" rather than "non-random", but you wouldn't even understand it).

Whether a mind is involved that wants to land in a particular spot, or whether a mind is involved that wants the evolutionary change to go in a certain direction, doesn't change anything about the basic mechanisms involved.

The mechanism you described has no mind.

Adding a planning mind that can effect things most definitely would change outcomes.

And? If you raise a stone then drop it, you've changed outcomes, since there wouldn't have been a stone to fall in that position. Yet its fall is determined by gravity, not by a mind.

This is the whole religious problem with Evolution.

There is no god anywhere or need of one.

And there is no plan or planner driving change towards humans.

It gets even better: humans aren't all that special at all.

At the bottom, it's a pretty damn religious view you're holding, putting them in such a special place.

 

[atrib]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.7303.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1203310/

Gamma radiation is mutagenic. Did it spark the Cambrian explosion in diversity?

What I remember from my reading some time ago, there were probably multiple drivers to the explosion in diversity of life between about 550 and 500MYA.
The development of sexual reproduction, leading to shuffling of genes which could be acted on by natural selection.
The development of vision, or the ability to sense light.
The evolution of predation, which would trigger a genetic arms race between predators and prey.
The development of bilateral symmetry in organisms which would help with locomotion and other functions.
Climate change.
and perhaps most importantly, the proliferation of specialized tool kit genes and genetic switches which are used to build the embryos/bodies of living organisms.

There is virtually no fossil evidence for the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna, i.e. the fossils from the Ediacaran era (which preceded the Cambrian) do not suggest a direct line of ancestry to the Cambrian organisms. We don't know why that is. Perhaps the Ediacaran ancestors of the Cambrian fauna were too small (1cm or less)?

In any event, I don't recall any discussion on possible changes in radiation levels on the planet's surface and in the oceans as being a driver for the Cambrian explosion.

 

[atrib]

As I understand it normal mutation rates can not account for all of evolution.

I am not an authority on the subject, but this does not sound right. Can you elaborate?

Of cause, evolution is not a directd process.

No, it isn't. Evolution is an undirected process with no goals, much in the same way mountain building is an undirected process with no goals.

 

[phands]

There is virtually no fossil evidence for the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna, i.e. the fossils from the Ediacaran era (which preceded the Cambrian) do not suggest a direct line of ancestry to the Cambrian organisms. We don't know why that is. Perhaps the Ediacaran ancestors of the Cambrian fauna were too small (1cm or less)?

In any event, I don't recall any discussion on possible changes in radiation levels on the planet's surface and in the oceans as being a driver for the Cambrian explosion.

As I stated earlier, one of the features of the CE was a large increase in biologically available Calcium in seawater, allowing shells and bones, which leave fossil records much more than the squishy bits.

 

[atrib]

Life evolves to fill energy niches.

The main argument against the Loch Ness monster is there is not enough food to support large mass animals.

The Cambrian era would not have been sustainable. There would be winners and losers. Not enough energy to support the total biomass.

Any proliferation of life is ultimately limited by available resources, and the Cambrian Explosion was life adapting and growing to take advantage of the resources available in the oceans. Post Cambrian, life also moved to the land, first with plants and insects, and later with larger animals like amphibians and reptiles which ultimately gave rise to all the land based fauna we see today.

- - - Updated - - -

There is virtually no fossil evidence for the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna, i.e. the fossils from the Ediacaran era (which preceded the Cambrian) do not suggest a direct line of ancestry to the Cambrian organisms. We don't know why that is. Perhaps the Ediacaran ancestors of the Cambrian fauna were too small (1cm or less)?

In any event, I don't recall any discussion on possible changes in radiation levels on the planet's surface and in the oceans as being a driver for the Cambrian explosion.

As I stated earlier, one of the features of the CE was a large increase in biologically available Calcium in seawater, allowing shells and bones, which leave fossil records much more than the squishy bits.

Excellent point.